Reading order
The Courtney Novels series — reading order
- When the Lion Feeds (1964)
- The Sound of Thunder (1966)
- A Sparrow Falls (1977)
- The Burning Shore (1985)
- Power of the Sword (1986)
- Rage (1987)
- A Time to Die (1989)
- Golden Fox (1990)
- Birds of Prey (1997)
- Monsoon (1999)
- Blue Horizon (2003)
- The Triumph of the Sun (2005)
- Every volume in order (13) ↓
- 13 volumes
- Volumes
- 1964–2009
- Published
- Completed
- Status
Quick answer
Start withWhen the Lion Feeds
Affiliate link: buying through it supports BookRank at no extra cost to you.
Publication order
13 volumes1964–2009Completed
- Thirteen novels across two centuries of one South African family, published out of order over forty-five years.
- The list below is publication order, which is the one to read: Smith wrote the twentieth-century Courtneys first, then went back in the 1990s to their seventeenth-century ancestors in Birds of Prey, Monsoon and Blue Horizon.
- Chronologically those three come first — and reading them first spoils nothing, but it does start you with a different writer, because the later books are broader and more violent than the ones he wrote in 1964.
- When the Lion Feeds is where it began.
Every volume in order
Read: 0 of 13
No volume in this series has enough ratings to enter a ranking yet, so the list carries no scores — the order and the volumes are still complete.
Order checked by hand · Order and years: Wikidata (CC0). Spotted an error? Tell us. · Data updated October 21, 2026